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Knollenberg was born in Mattoon, Illinois, the son of Helen (née Kastl) and William E. Knollenberg. All of his grandparents were German immigrants.[1] He graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1955. He has lived in the Detroit area since 1959, and has lived in Oakland County since 1967. After graduation, he served in the United States Army from 1955 to 1957. He then spent more than three decades as an insurance agent. Initially working for New York Life and Sears, he founded his own agency in the late 1980s. He served as chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party from 1978 to 1982.

In 1992, Knollenberg signed on as campaign manager for Congressman William Broomfield, who had represented most of Oakland County in Congress since 1957. However, at a meeting with Knollenberg and other advisers, Broomfield announced he would not run for a 19th term. He then asked Knollenberg to run in his place in the 11th District, which had been renumbered from the 18th District after the 1990 census. Despite being the only candidate in the three-way Republican primary not holding elected office, Knollenberg won the nomination by over 13 points. As the 11th was one of the most Republican districts in Michigan and the nation at the time, he was virtually assured of becoming only the third person to represent the district. He was reelected six times without serious difficulty, never dropping below 55 percent of the vote.

Knollenberg was re-elected to his seventh term in 2004 with 58% of the vote. In 2006, however, Knollenberg faced a tough campaign against DemocratNancy Skinner, a liberal talk show host in the Detroit area, ultimately winning by six points. Two years later, in a more difficult election cycle for Republican candidates, Knollenberg lost re-election to Gary Peters.

Prior to 2006, Knollenberg's election was widely considered to be relatively easy given the traditionally Republican leanings of Troy, the largest city in his district. However, recent demographic shifts in the district, and Oakland County as a whole, made what was once a bastion of suburban conservatism much more competitive. For example, George W. Bush barely won the district in 2000 and 2004. The 2000s round of redistricting made Knollenberg's district much friendlier to Democrats. While the district lost heavily Democratic Southfield, it picked up equally Democratic Pontiac and lost a Republican-leaning spur of Wayne County.

In the 2006 election, Knollenberg was nearly defeated, taking only 52 percent of the vote to Skinner's 46 percent. Abel received .9%, and Goodman received 1.3%.[7] This was the closest a Democrat had come to winning the district in 48 years; in 1958 Broomfield only won a second term by 5.5 points.

In January 2006, Congressman Knollenberg announced his intent to seek re-election in 2008. The narrowness of his 2006 reelection bid, combined with his district's changing demographics led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to target him for defeat.[9] The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee targeted Congressional Districts where Republicans garnered less than 55% of the vote.[10]

The Democratic nominee was Gary Peters, the former state lottery commissioner. Skinner initially made plans for a rematch, but bowed out to clear the field for Peters.[11] On 12 March 2008, Dr. Jack Kevorkian announced that he would challenge Knollenberg as an independent candidate.[12] The Libertarian nominee was Adam Goodman and the Green nominee was Douglas Campbell. Kevorkian, Goodman and Campbell each raised and spent less money than the mandatory reporting threshold.

On November 4, 2008, Knollenberg was defeated, garnering 43 percent of the vote to Peters' 52 percent. Knollenberg's candidacy was likely hurt by a heavy Democratic tide in the Detroit area; Barack Obama carried Oakland County by a 15-point margin, six percentage points more than Peters' margin over Knollenberg. A potential factor in Knollenberg's defeat was a series of advertisements criticizing his vote against expanding S-CHIP.[13]